


Betelgeuse

by Summercloud, xylaria



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Community: numb3rswriteoff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summercloud/pseuds/Summercloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylaria/pseuds/xylaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And it don’t mean I don’t wish I was out there to watch your back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betelgeuse

“Don Eppes is an ass!” Megan groused as she slammed another clean glass onto the shelf. “I’m every bit as good a shot as you and Charlie, and a better horseman than the both of you."

"Horsewoman," Larry corrected her, but his heart wasn't in it. He sighed and leaned his elbows on the bar. He really didn’t want to get into this argument again, but it wasn’t as if there was anything he could do about it. Don had decreed that a posse was no place for a woman, and no matter the illogic of it, Don would not change his mind.

Plus, it kept her out of danger. Not that he'd be saying that out loud any time soon.

“This’ll be the last one, I promise.” He told her instead, reaching his hand across the bar to cover hers, which was wrapped white-knuckled around a rag. "Next time I'll say no, I swear."

"No, you won't," Megan corrected him, pulling her hand away to resume her angry polishing of the bar glasses. "You'll say yes, because you can't say no to them Eppes brothers.” Megan sighed and finally looked Larry in the eye. Her back was straight and her mouth was firm, and if her knuckles hadn't still been white Larry might have believed the lie. “And behind that analytical head of yours, you’re an adrenaline junky at heart. If it t’weren’t the posse t’would be something else. But that don’t mean I have to like it. And it don’t mean I don’t wish I was out there to watch your back."

Larry opened his mouth to respond, but Megan didn’t give him a chance.

"You be careful today." She told him severely, and he could see the tears glistening in her eyes as she turned her back on him and began organizing the already perfectly aligned liquor bottles behind the bar.

Larry rose and went around behind the bar, wrapping his arms around Megan from behind and effectively stilling her movements. He would be the first to admit that he was less than adept at relationships, but he hated to see her so upset.

“I love you,” he said, burying his face in her hair. He felt her slowly relax into his embrace as she sniffed. Turning her by her shoulders he looked her in the eyes. “I’ll be careful. And with any luck I’ll be home in time for dinner tonight.” He held her tight in his arms for another moment before gently kissing her forehead. Megan seemed to be about to say something, but Larry was already late, and did not want the goodbye to be any more emotional than it already was. With one last squeeze he turned and walked out the door, sparing only a single glance back to see Megan looking after him, tears glistening in her eyes and arms wrapped protectively around her slightly rounded middle.

***

"He'll try ta run, knowing Edgerton, so Charlie and Fleinhardt, you're with me; Sinclair and Granger, you--"

"Ah, Don," Charlie Eppes interrupted, bounding up from his seat, "Knowing Ian Edgerton, and given the terrain in that particular valley, a better plan might be..."

Colby Granger expertly tuned Charlie out. "What I don't understand," he complained to his partner, "is how Edgerton could go bad. I mean, Edgerton!” He shook is head in disbelief.

David shrugged. "I hear the feds took over his folks’ ranch, said they were resettling all the Indians farther west. Second time in ten years they’d been resettled, I hear."

"I don’t care what happens, you don’t turn on your posse." Colby muttered, not at all satisfied with this response. David just shook his head, so Colby turned to Larry instead. "What do you think, Fleinhardt? There anything that would make you turn on the posse?"

Larry blinked, turning his attention from Charlie’s diagrams. "Well, um, ah..." he trailed off, shrugged, and then tried again. "I’m sure there is a breaking point for each of us."

"Granger! Sinclair! Fleinhardt! A little attention, if you would?" Don’s sharp tone recalled them to business, and the posse turned their collective attention to the back wall of the little room.

A large slate (shipped at great expense all the way from New York, rumor said) had been laboriously hung at chest level. It was now covered in Charlie's sprawling writing, stick figures, and arrows. Nobody would ever accuse Charlie Eppes of being an artist, that was for sure. But his plans, while often brilliant, would be entirely unintelligible to most of the posse without the diagrams.

As Charlie explained the plan, with Larry offering suggestions and arguing angles and wind speeds and David asking for clarifications, Colby settled back in his chair and marveled that anything could make someone leave this.

***

Larry took a long pull from his canteen and then wiped the sweat from his forehead with an already saturated cloth. For once, one of Charlie’s plans had failed and they had spent the day fruitlessly riding around in the hot sun with no sign of their quarry. Larry was ready to be home, have a drink and some dinner at the saloon, and then upstairs to fall asleep in their soft bed. Maybe they would even go out on the roof and watch the stars after Megan closed up for the night. He was so caught up in his thoughts that his horse stopping took him by surprise. Looking up, he saw that the posse was drawn up in front of him looking at something in the center of town that he couldn’t quite see over their heads.

“Well I’ll be…that son of a bitch” Granger muttered in front of him, and as David’s horse fidgeted sideways, Larry got a good look at what had stopped the posse dead in its tracks and Larry felt his blood run cold.

Ian Edgerton was casually leaned back in a rocking chair on the porch of Megan’s saloon.

Larry tried to push his way to the front of the posse, as if from there he might be able to see if Megan were alright. There was no logic to it, no rational, just pure blind panic that a dangerous and desperate man was sitting in front of Megan’s place and he didn’t know where Megan was.

“Ian Edgerton,” Larry yelled, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. Then he faltered, rendered mute by his fear, unable to rationalize the best course of action.

Edgerton grinned lazily and waved a hand. “Hey, boys. Wussup?”

Colby grabbed Larry, holding him back and Don moved forward to face Ian squarely. “There’s a warrant on your head, Edgerton, and you know it. You gonna come easy, or we gonna do this the hard way?”

Edgerton leaned back father into the chair, his hand coming to rest casually on the butt of his gun, “You know me, boss. But if you’re willing to pay the price to take me the hard way I’m game.”

Don scowled, and the rest of the posse shifted uneasily. This was going nowhere good, and it was going there fast.

And then things went from bad to worse.

***

Megan had been wiping down the tables when she heard Larry yell. Worried that something had happened during the manhunt, she rushed to the door. Stepping out she took in the situation in one glance: Edgerton, looking deceptively relaxed in the rocking chair, hand casually on his gun; Don sitting tense on his horse, hand also on his gun; the rest of the posse watching warily, except for Larry who was looking at her with wide, scared eyes.

“Well, if it isn’t pretty little Megan Reeves,” Edgerton drawled. Megan scowled at him, slowing reaching through the slit in the side of her skirt with one hand and shaking the pointed finger of the other at Edgerton as a distraction.

“Ian Edgerton, you get off my porch this instant! I’ll not have anyone, even you, bringing trouble here.”

Edgerton smirked and rose gracefully from the rocking chair, Megan took a step back switching instantly to playing the timid maiden and praying that Larry and the rest of the posse would keep their heads. “You shouldn’t have come out here Miss Reeves. You’ve just given me the perfect hostage.” He reached out to grab her arm, but before he could three things happened so fast they were almost indistinguishable.

As Edgerton reached for Megan’s arm Larry shouted, breaking free of Colby and spurring his mount forward in a panic, gun still in its holster at his side. Edgerton, hearing the yell, spun around and fired at Larry, turning his back on Megan in the process. And Megan raised the gun she had hidden in her skirts and fired at Edgerton's unprotected back.

There was a moment of silence while the smoke cleared and the echo of the shots rang off the surrounding hills. Edgerton slipped off the arm of the rocking chair where he had fallen, landing on the porch with a dull thud. The blood from his shattered skull spread in a crimson pool around him. Larry’s horse came to a stop in front of the porch, Larry slumped over his horse’s neck holding on to the mane with bloody fingers. As Megan ran to his side, Larry lost his grip and slowly began to topple sideways.

***

Megan sat on the roof of the saloon, looking up at the stars, lost in reminiscence. A small cry brought her back to the present and the small bundle in her arms. Smiling, she stroked a finger down the baby’s face. “See those stars up there little one? Your father is in those stars. That bright one there? It’s called Betelgeuse, it was his favorite.”


End file.
